Episode 2: UCSB, Part I

Hey everyone! 

This episode will be covering my life experiences as a college student at the University of CA, Santa Barbara.

I will be sharing how I survived being in a toxic relationship, overcame a huge health battle, and the hardship of losing someone very important in my life. 

I also would like to split my college experience into 2 episodes, since I didn’t realize how much occurred throughout the 5 years I spent at UCSB.

Cheers to Part I! 

XOXO,
Janny

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Transcript

Episode 2: College at UCSB, Part 1

Hi everyone! 

Welcome back to Janeration, with your host, Janny Nguyen! 

Thank you everyone who listened to my first full episode! Please let me know what you think about the rainstick sound & the singing bowl at the end. Hope the volume was okay..

If you could comment on a post on my IG or FB page with some feedback; I’d really appreciate it!

Today’s episode will be covering my life experiences as a college student at the 

University of CA, Santa Barbara. Go Gauchos! 

I will be sharing how I survived being in a toxic relationship, overcame a huge health battle, and the hardship of losing someone very important in my life. 

I also would like to split my college experience into 2 episodes, since I didn’t realize how much occurred throughout the 5 years I spent at UCSB.

Therefore, I will disclaim that today’s episode will be a little emotional.. 

The events that took place while I was in college affected my life tremendously. 

The person I am today has a lot to do with how I’ve learned to take care of myself, 

mentally and physically throughout this period of my life. 

It is also WHY I always strive to promote love, compassion, and wellness to the world all around.

Hope you’re all ready for Episode 2--it’s gonna be a bit of a bumpy, roller coaster ride..

*rainstick*

Let’s begin with freshman year;

To start off, I came in as a pre-bio major with the intent to be an anesthesiologist. 

Throughout highschool, I knew I wanted to do something in the medical field. 

Maybe that stemmed from being in a traditional Vietnamese household, where it was embedded in us that people in the health profession make the most money. 

Regardless, I was excited and content with my goal as I began my freshman year at UCSB.

However, as I began my classes, it was extremely difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel. 

My very first class was calculus, which happened to be in the biggest lecture hall with over 800 students scrambling around trying to find a seat.  

For those of you who are familiar with UCSB, it was Campbell Hall. 

I was overwhelmed with the intensity of how many people were in one lecture hall, and didn’t realize that my chemistry class and lab were just as intense. 

I thought I was prepared for the rigorousness of the courses since I graduated highschool with flying colors, but I was wrong. I was super stressed out because I hate math, but love science.

Also, as I began my college life, I was in a very toxic relationship and lived with my ex and little dog in an apartment outside of campus, instead of dorming like most freshmen do--

This was obviously a HUGE mistake. 

I quickly learned that my ex was extremely controlling and didn’t even want me to have a real college experience. This held me back from being social with classmates, attending campus events, and even joining clubs that I wanted to participate in. I wasn’t even allowed to study with a male classmate unless there was a female classmate in the study group as well. 

I know what you’re thinking, what the hell?? Why would I let someone control me like that? 

Well, in all honesty, I didn’t know it NOR could I see it at the time.. That this person just had major insecurity issues and felt like he needed to control my life to make him secure. 

As my first year ended, I realized that my ex wasn’t someone that cared about my life experiences as a college student at all.. Which leads us into year 2, sophomore year. 

*rainstick*

I was unsure how I could handle studying as a pre-bio major, since I had to take on 3 more science classes AND their labs for the entire year; which were Ochem, biology, and physics. 

As my sophomore year progressed, my relationship got worse with verbal and emotional abuse. 

I was naive, submissive, and wasn’t proud of the student or person I was becoming. 

My grades suffered since I couldn’t separate myself from the drama with my ex and all the stress from school..I was still living with the guy and my health was also taking a toll. 

Throughout my freshman and sophomore year, I was experiencing waves of pelvic pain and couldn’t understand why, so I went to student health.

After an entire year of running numerous tests, collecting samples, taking meds, 

I was sent to a specialist since everything else was ruled out gynecologically.

Within 15 minutes of explaining my symptoms, I was diagnosed with a condition called, 

“Interstitial Cystitis”.

I teared up--I was relieved that someone finally understood what I was going through, but that relief didn’t last long after hearing about the protocol for this medical condition. 

To explain, Interstitial Cystitis is a chronic condition causing recurring pelvic pain, pressure, or discomfort in the bladder and pelvic region, often associated with urinary frequency (needing to go often) and urgency (feeling a strong need to go). 

It is still unknown what causes a person to have this medical condition, which means there is still no cure for it. There are only ways to help alleviate pain and I have to follow a very restricted diet. 

This means no caffeine, alcohol, citrus, dairy, spicy food, foods or drinks that had artificial sweeteners or msg. Can you imagine hearing all of this after being diagnosed? It didn’t stop there.

I had to schedule time for my treatments, which at the time, were 3 times a week for 6 weeks while I was a full-time college student, struggling to keep my grades up. 

And it's not like these treatments were cheap. 

They were super expensive and I could barely afford them with my financial aid and scholarship money for tuition.

I was so overwhelmed and stressed out that I was ashamed of telling my family and friends I needed a break. As a result, I was depressed, scared to eat or drink anything, and lost about 20lbs in one month.

I know, 20lbs?! How??

Prior to being diagnosed, I always had a big appetite and usually ate more than my family and friends.  

A month after being diagnosed with IC, I looked pale, had no appetite, and my hair was falling out from the medication I was on. 

Honestly, I didn’t register how much I wasn’t eating because of the fear of experiencing pelvic pain. 

I then noticed that I couldn’t fit into my clothes; they were loose and baggy. 

I feared for my health and life, because I physically looked like I was fading away. 

At this point, I was struggling mentally, physically, and financially. So I took a quarter off school.

I knew I had to find the strength to take charge of my mind and body, so I did some research.

I began drinking protein shakes, weight gainer, and found an online support group for people with IC.

I even discovered that smoking marijuana helped with my appetite, so I asked my specialist for his professional opinion, and he actually referred me to an office where I was able to get my medical card.

After about two months, I gained my weight back and returned to school the following quarter. 

With the amount of health bills I encountered, I needed to find a job to support the treatment and lifestyle I had to take on.

Therefore, I stumbled upon a babysitting gig on Craigslist for a local family and decided to give it a shot! As I’ve mentioned before, being a part of a huge family means you have a lot of experiences, and one of the many experiences I had was being an aunt at a very young age. 

I used this as my toolbelt for taking care of this amazing, fun-loving family, and continued working for them until I graduated from UCSB. Miss and love you guys so much Pepper’s!!

Being a part of this family and growing with them was essential to my well-being and healing process.

Taking care of the little 5 month old baby (and later on his lil bro) taught me the responsibility that comes with raising a child; which led me to the epiphany that I had to start taking much BETTER care of myself. 

*rainstick*

As my third year was coming to an end, I was definitely feeling overwhelmed with how much time and money I spent taking care of my health while juggling school and work.

I smoked a lot more due to stress of school and my health, I ran low on funds, and unfortunately, my toxic relationship got physically abusive. 

I couldn’t take it anymore, and I was scared for my well-being.

I became very conscious of how I was being mistreated and recognized that I did not want to keep living my life as someone who felt like she couldn’t take care of herself or had a voice. 

So I called my eldest sister, Samantha, (Chi Trang) for support.

All my life, Sam pushed me to be the best daughter, sister, and student I could be so that I could make my family proud. 

She was told me the story of the journey of how my family immigrated to the US, so

It was instilled in me since I was very young, that the best thing I can give to my parents was my education and to have a successful career and lifestyle. 

Sam knew that I needed financial support, but she also knew that I was struggling to be strong. 

This was due to the fact that my family decided to give me an intervention about my use of smoking marijuana.

I could not believe they put me through this with the immense stress I was already having to endure!

I was so angry and annoyed with my family; that they had the nerve to do this to me.

From their perspective, I kept asking my family for financial support to help pay for my essentials as a result of overspending on medical marijuana. 

So when I called Sam, I knew that she knew that I was going to ask for money to help pay my rent and medical bills.

But what I didn’t know was that Sam had a whole plan laid out for me. 

At the time, Samantha went through a bit of a journey herself. 

She completed a series of self-development classes that helped overcome her struggles and she expressed how much she wanted me to have the same experience and growth. 

Remember, I am a third year undergrad student, and midterms were coming up. 

This was a 5-day class in Costa Mesa, CA. 

How was I going to be able to do this while prepping for midterms? I told her there’s no way I could.

But Sam didn’t budge. If I needed money to get by for my expenses, I had to take this class. 

Feeling like I had no other choice, I took a leap of faith and skipped class at UCSB for this course.

Sam’s best friend, Chia, took me to this class and picked me up everyday when it was over.

This was by far, the most intense, uncomfortable, yet metamorphic class I’ve ever taken. 

It was a 12 hour class, for 5 days in a row!

I was in this course with about 40 other people, complete strangers, ranging in age from 18-80 years old. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but this experience literally transformed my life! 

Although I cannot speak about the contents of this course, due to the privacy of the company and of the people who took this course, I will say that completing this course gave me the strength that my life required. 

I learned a tremendous amount about myself--how and why I get angry at certain things, why I feel like I couldn’t trust people, and most importantly, I learned to love and respect myself--something I was never aware of or conscious of before. 

After completing this course, Sam, Chia, and I became extremely close since we all had this life-changing experience and had a mutual understanding and language we’d go by when we’d see each other.

When I returned to my apartment in Santa Barbara, I felt like I was completely myself again. 

I was reminded of WHO I was BEFORE my relationship, and found the courage to break up with my ex.

It was not pretty, and the guy ripped my dog out of my arms. This was the last time I ever saw them. 

Even though I was ready to end this relationship, I was still so hurt from losing my dog.

Fortunately, my family and friends were so happy and relieved that this nightmare was finally over.

He was unreliable, unfaithful, and disrespected me on so many levels.

Obviously, when you are in a toxic relationship, you can’t see what your loved ones see for you. 

You won’t agree and every response becomes a defense mechanism.

It takes YOU wanting to break free from the abuse, because maybe you were blinded by what you thought was love or security. 

Coming out of this relationship lifted a huge weight off my shoulders, and I am so thankful that my sister knew what I needed, and took measures to help me in this period of my life. 

*rainstick*

Year 4: the actual beginning of my college experience. 

When my relationship ended, my cousin, Sal took me in and we spent our 4th year living together.

This was also the same year my other lil cousin, Vi joined us as a freshman at UCSB!

I cannot begin to explain how much this meant to me; how thankful and grateful I was for being lucky enough to share my college experience with my family.

Without a doubt, they are one of the reasons why, and HOW I was able to push through this difficult time of learning to be independent and confident again. You know,

When you go through something like this, it's very important to have a strong support system.

Living together, sharing rooms, cooking together, sharing funny stories, going to school events.. 

ALL of this was necessary for me to heal and to finally enjoy my life in college. 

As I’ve mentioned in Episode 1 of my podcast, cooking has always been a family experience, so my cousins and I took advantage of our time in college and cooked sooo much together! 

We all had our own thing;

Sal made various dishes ranging from spring rolls to hot pot, while Vi loved making sauces and noodle soups, and I made all the comfort foods we had growing up.

I loved our family bonding time and I will cherish our college memories forever Sal and Vi! 

Love you two so much!!

I also rekindled my friendships and began being more social with my friends and classmates. 

One of my closest girlfriends, Erica, had actually also been going through the same issues as I was, 

so it was nice to have someone that could relate to the feelings I was having from all the aftermath.

And let me tell you, we had way too much fun together; turning 21 and hitting up downtown Santa Barbara was our jam! So grateful for these memories that will last forever! 

Love you girl!

One of the best things I did was that I joined a Tahitian dance club, called “Iaorana Te Otea”.

It was a dance group formed for anyone who was interested in learning hula, tahitian dance, and polynesin culture. 

This group was family oriented, where we had “ohanas” grouped together, having big’s, little’s, and siblings--and I absolutely LOVED this aspect of ITO. 

This was mainly due to the fact that I already have 7 sisters and had zero interest in joining a sorority when I literally, already have sisters for life! LOL

Dancing with them brought my confidence back in full throttle!

The drumbeats, coconut bras, and grass skirts gave me life!

I was so happy and excited to learn how to make my booty & hips shake so they don’t lie! haha

Being a part of this group brought so much love and created ever-lasting friendships. 

Big shout out to my ohana where I met my big, Janyce and little, Stephanie. 

I’m so happy to say that we are all still so supportive in each other’s lives! 

I sort of lost touch with my “sibs”, but I still hold onto memories of our ohana! 

I finally had so much joy during this 4th year in college, that I decided to take my time and take on another year at UCSB. 

Alrighty, this sums up the first portion of my college experience!

I overcame a toxic relationship and learned how to love and respect myself wholeheartedly.

It took a while for me to feel 100% secure about myself and my life choices.

I became fueled with how much confidence and empowerment I’ve gained from these experiences.

So just a little reminder: remember, you learn by making mistakes. 

Just don’t let those mistakes define your future.

Channel and hone in on what brings you happiness, love, and light. 

Don’t let anyone bring you down, no matter how hard they try.

My first 4 years of college was quite a journey, but the events leading up to year 5 impacted my life.

So stay tuned for Part 2 of my college life at UCSB!

To close out this episode, I’d like to share a passage from a self-meditation book that was gifted to me a few years ago from an old co-worker. 

The book is called Self-Meditation by Barbara Ann Kipfer. 

Here it goes! Page 140 reading:

Wow, such amazing words of wisdom! I love it!

Again you’re listening to, “Janeration” with your host, Janny Nguyen! 

If you liked what you’ve heard so far, please make sure to visit my website at https://janeration.buzzsprout.com where you can follow and subscribe to my podcast!

Don’t forget to also follow me on IG under @janeration.pod 

OR on FB at www.facebook.com/janny.nguyen

BTW: Episode 1’s singing bowl sound was created with the root chakra.

For today’s episode, I will be using the sacral chakra singing bowl. 

Thank you again so much for listening in!

Stay tuned for episode 3! Talk to you all soon! 

Xoxo,

Janny 

*singing bowl*